


Beer, Brandy, Belladonna

by penlex



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Magic, Magical Realism, One-Sided Attraction, POV Outsider, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Spooky, Witches, reader POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 03:17:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15855132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penlex/pseuds/penlex
Summary: Were one to look out one's window during a deep dark night in the heavy sticky midwestern heat of July, one might have the privilege and the burden to see the procession of the midsummer Witches' Mass.





	Beer, Brandy, Belladonna

**Author's Note:**

> You can also read and comment on this work FOR FREE on my Patreon, [here](https://www.patreon.com/posts/witch-noir-short-20447673).

Were one to look out one's window, if one's window had a very opportune placement, during a deep dark night in the heavy sticky midwestern heat of July, one might have the privilege and the burden to see the procession of the midsummer Witches' Mass.

Watching out one's opportune window, in the middle of that summer night when one ought to be asleep but has been woken by a sudden sense of restlessness that is an unease and a dread and an excitement and an arousal all together that cannot be separated or named, one would see an endless heretic throng of shrieking women all naked as the strange animals that guard their heels. The line of them would seem never ending, to one who simply happens to be looking, though truly they are only perhaps a hundred (at least in _this_ city, on this night when one happened to be looking, there are only a hundred). One might stare and stare for hours, enthralled helplessly and in one's entirety, by the beauty that went by, unheeded and unmolested by anything, long after the witches had all passed.

If one were particularly astute about these sorts of eerie things, if one could bring oneself to remember that they are not dreaming, not anymore, one might blink and see the now empty street below them as it is. But even then, if one were that lucky, still they would not be able to turn away and go back to bed. One might, instead, no matter how desperately one might try to convince oneself not to, exit their apartment in their pajamas and creep down the stairs and out into the street still echoing with the screams of the witches that have gone.

One might, not entirely of their own volition, follow those echoes on their bare feet along the dirty black city road. And if one did that, one would soon come to the center of everything, where the territories of the four Gateway Covens meet, the very heart of the city itself such that one could feel it beating and witness the witches chant and hum along to the rhythm. Those hundred witches, one would see there, rubbing into their skin a bitter-smelling paste. One would watch, discomfited and envious (oh so envious), as the witches sprinkle each other with salt, lick it from each other, trade their lime slices, improprietous, through smacking wet  
tongueful kisses. They would all be smeared with sweet alcohol and with lipstick all over.

One would watch, panting in fear or heat or both (probably both), that rowdy and hedonistic pit as all those naked women (seeming infinite to one who only saw from their window and unwisely followed, but still only a hundred) dance and writhe. There would be no music, but one would hear it anyway. There would be no Devil there - or maybe there would, and one would only tell oneself, over and over again as if that would make it more true, that He does not exist (but then, before tonight one did not believe witches existed either).

One would hear the witches cry out to their dead, and one would hear the witches' dead answer them. One would think to oneself how impossible that is, but unable to deny the truth of what one's own ears had heard, there would be no convincing oneself of that. One would know the voice of Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Good, and one would feel the vengeful spirits of them and their old friends, come all the way from the wicked gallows of Salem to revel in the continuing indomitable life of their sisters.

Eventually the chanting would die down. There would be a bonfire, and the naked women would lay upon the ground without care to the state of it, and they would pass the bottle opener around for their beers which would sweat, chilled, into the dirt. The elder ones would sip from square glasses and surveil the rest, and the youthful ones would form giggling crowded circles. There would be card games, and some would tell one's fortune if one were brave enough to ask, and some would simply tell one to go fish.

One might, if one were that sort of foolhardy and reckless person (or if one were just that horny), slowly work up the courage to go and say hello. One might take a few steps towards the Mass even, ready to prostrate oneself to these unholy holy women, to beg for- for whatever they might give, oh god _anything_. But one would not get very far, halted, frozen in one's tracks when an orange cat turns his head around and looks right into one's eyes.

One's breath would catch in one's throat, knowing from the look the orange cat gives that he knows they had thought of interrupting the festivities. This is a mourning celebration, after all, and not an appropriate time to profess one's desire to be possessed and enthralled and- and whatever else a Mass of witches might do to one who happened to throw oneself to the ground at their feet (anything, _anything_ ). The orange cat would lift his lip into the snarl that comes before a hiss, would show his long teeth, and one would suddenly come to one's senses.

At long last, one might run all the way home, realizing the trip is much longer than one had thought going the other way. One would run up the stairs and through the door to their apartment and throw oneself into the bed and wrap up in the covers and squeeze one's eyes shut so tight it would hurt one's face, and one would thenceforth mind one's own damn business.

That is, _if_ one was very smart and knew what was good for them, and _if_ the orange cat turned to look, and _if_ his knowing glare brought one to one's senses…

So if, perhaps, one deep dark night in the heavy sticky midwestern heat of July, you are woken by a sudden sense of restlessness that is an unease and a dread and an excitement and an arousal all together, and you think you hear from your window the singing and shrieking of a Mass of drunken women…

Best not to look.

**Author's Note:**

> You can also read and comment on this work FOR FREE on my Patreon, [here](https://www.patreon.com/posts/witch-noir-short-20447673).


End file.
